The best Christmas stories. Christmas and Christmas stories in Russian literature of the 18th-21st centuries Reading Christmas stories

In Rus', Christmas time (the period from Christmas to Epiphany, which before the revolution included the celebration of the New Year) has always been a special time. At this time, the old people gathered and told each other wonderful stories about what could be done on the eve and after Christmas. From these stories - sometimes funny, sometimes scary - Christmastide stories arose - a special kind of texts, the action in which could only take place on the New Year, Christmas or on the eve of Epiphany. This time reference has led researchers to consider them a kind of calendar literature.

The expression "Christmas stories" was first used in 1826 by Nikolai Polevoy in the Moscow Telegraph magazine, telling readers about how Moscow old people at Christmas time remembered their youth and told different stories to each other. This literary device was subsequently used by other Russian writers.

However, even at the beginning of the 19th century, narratives close to Christmastide stories about the search for a betrothed, the romantic translated ballads of Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky "Lyudmila" and "Svetlana", Gogol's "The Night Before Christmas" were popular.

The Christmas stories familiar to us appear only after the forties of the 19th century, when Charles Dickens's collection A Christmas Carol in Prose was translated in Russia, and from that moment the genre flourished. Christmas stories are written by Dostoevsky, Leskov, Chekhov, and until the 80-90s of the 19th century, real masterpieces (“The Boy at Christ on the Christmas Tree”, “Vanka”) come out, but already at the end of the 19th century, the genre of Christmas stories begins to collapse.

Many magazines appeared in Russia, journalists and writers were forced every year at the same time to come up with texts on Christmas themes, which led to repetition and irony, about which Nikolai Leskov, one of the founders of the Russian Christmas story, wrote sadly. He, in the preface to The Pearl Necklace, named the signs of a good Christmas story: “ From the Christmas story it is absolutely required that it be timed to coincide with the events of the Christmas evening - from Christmas to Epiphany, that it be somewhat fantastic, have some kind of morality, at least like a refutation of a harmful prejudice, and finally - that it ends without fail cheerfully.

It should be noted that in the best examples of this genre one can rarely find a happy ending: much more often Chekhov, Dostoevsky and Leskov spoke about the tragedy of the life of a “little man”, that he does not use his chance or harbors false hopes. Vanka Zhukov on Christmas Eve writes a letter “to the village of grandfather”, and asks to be taken away from the city, but this letter will never reach the addressee, the boy’s life will remain difficult.

However, there were and are other stories with a happy ending, where good triumphs over evil, and the reader can get acquainted with them on the Thomas website, which contains modern examples of this genre. Be warned that we are talking about texts for adults.. A Christmas story for children is a topic for a separate conversation, which will definitely take place.

One of the best texts in our selection can be considered the tragic story of the boy Yurka and his drinking parents. "Yurka's Christmas". At first glance, this text does not leave the reader a chance for happiness and justice, but the Christmas miracle still happens, it opens in the fate of the protagonist, who managed to save himself and regain his loved one.

The reader will learn about the duel between St. Nicholas and Jack Frost (the English equivalent of Santa Claus) for the life of one artist.

Even from this small selection you can see how different a Christmas story can be. We hope that each of our readers will be able to find a text that will fill his heart with the experience of Christmas, help him take a fresh look at his life and at the same time give him a little joy and hope.

IN In recent years, Christmas and Christmas stories have become widespread. Not only collections of Christmastide stories written before 1917 are published - their creative tradition began to revive. From the recent one - in the New Year's Eve issue of the Afisha magazine (2006), 12 Christmastide stories by contemporary Russian writers were published.

However, the very history of the emergence and development of the genre form of the Christmas story is no less fascinating than his masterpieces. She is the subject of an article by Elena Vladimirovna DUSHECHKINA, Doctor of Philology, Professor of St. Petersburg State University.

From Christmas story it is absolutely required that it be timed to coincide with the events of the Christmas evening - from Christmas to Epiphany, that it be somewhat fantastic, have some kind of morality, at least like a refutation of a harmful prejudice, and finally - that it certainly ends in fun ... Yuletide the story, being within all its framework, can nevertheless change and present a curious variety, reflecting in itself both its time and customs.

N.S. Leskov

The history of the Christmas story can be traced in Russian literature for three centuries - from the 18th century to the present, however, its final formation and flowering is observed in the last quarter of the 19th century - during the period of active growth and democratization of the periodical press and the formation of the so-called "small" press.

It is the periodical press, due to its confinement to a certain date, that becomes the main supplier of calendar "literary products", including the Christmas story.

Of particular interest are those texts in which there is a connection with oral folk Christmas stories, because they clearly demonstrate the methods of assimilation by literature of oral tradition and the “literaritization” of folklore plots that are meaningfully related to the semantics of folk Christmas time and the Christian holiday of Christmas.

But the essential difference between a literary Christmas story and a folklore story lies in the nature of the image and the interpretation of the climactic Christmas episode.

Installation on the truth of the incident and the reality of the characters is an indispensable feature of such stories. Supernatural collisions are not peculiar to the Russian literary Christmas story. A plot like "The Night Before Christmas" by Gogol is quite rare. Meanwhile, it is the supernatural that is the main theme of such stories. However, what may seem supernatural, fantastic to the heroes, most often receives a very real explanation.

The conflict is built not on the collision of a person with the otherworldly evil world, but on the shift in consciousness that occurs in a person who, due to certain circumstances, has doubted his disbelief in the otherworldly world.

Humorous Christmastide stories, so characteristic of the "thin" magazines of the second half of the 19th century, often develop the motive of meeting with evil spirits, the image of which arises in the mind of a person under the influence of alcohol (cf. the expression "get drunk to hell"). In such stories, fantastic elements are used unrestrainedly and, one might even say, uncontrollably, since their realistic motivation justifies any phantasmagoria.

But here it should be taken into account that literature is enriched by a genre, the nature and existence of which give it a deliberately anomalous character.

Being a phenomenon of calendar literature, the Christmas story is tightly connected with its holidays, their cultural life and ideological issues, which prevents changes in it, its development, as required by the literary norms of the new time.

Before the author who wants or - more often - who has received an order from the editors to write a Christmas story for the holiday, there is a certain "warehouse" of characters and a given set of plot moves, which he uses more or less masterly, depending on his combinatorial abilities.

The literary genre of the Christmas story lives according to the laws of folklore and ritual "aesthetics of identity", focusing on the canon and stamp - a stable complex of stylistic, plot and thematic elements, the transition of which from text to text not only does not irritate the reader, but, on the contrary, gives him pleasure.

It must be admitted that for the most part, literary Christmas stories do not have high artistic merit. In the development of the plot, they use long-established techniques, their range of problems is limited to a narrow circle of life problems, which, as a rule, boil down to clarifying the role of chance in a person's life. Their language, although it often claims to reproduce live colloquial speech, is often miserable and monotonous. However, the study of such stories is necessary.

Firstly, they directly and visibly, in view of the nakedness of the techniques, demonstrate the ways in which literature assimilated folklore plots. Already being literature, but at the same time continuing to fulfill the function of folklore, which consists in influencing the reader with the whole atmosphere of their artistic world, built on mythological representations, such stories occupy an intermediate position between the oral and written traditions.

Secondly, such stories and thousands of similar ones make up that literary body, which is called mass fiction. They served as the main and constant "pulp" of the Russian ordinary reader, who was brought up on them and formed his artistic taste. Ignoring such literary production, one cannot understand the psychology of perception and the artistic needs of a literate, but still uneducated Russian reader. We know "great" literature quite well - the works of great writers, the classics of the 19th century - but our knowledge of it will remain incomplete until we can imagine the background against which great literature existed and on the basis of which it often grew. .

And finally, thirdly, Christmas stories are examples of almost completely unstudied calendar literature - a special kind of texts, the consumption of which is timed to coincide with a certain calendar time, when only their, so to speak, therapeutic effect on the reader is possible.

For qualified readers, the cliche and stereotype of the Christmas story was a disadvantage, which was reflected in the criticism of the Christmas production, in declarations about the crisis of the genre and even its end. Such an attitude towards the Christmas story accompanies it almost throughout its literary history, testifying to the specificity of the genre, whose right to literary existence was proved only by the creative efforts of major Russian writers of the 19th century.

Those writers who could give an original and unexpected interpretation of the "supernatural" event, "evil spirits", "Christmas miracle" and other components fundamental to Christmas literature, were able to go beyond the usual cycle of Christmas stories. Such are Leskov's "Christmas" masterpieces - "Selective Grain", "A Little Mistake", "Darner" - about the specifics of the "Russian miracle". Such are Chekhov's stories - "Vanka", "On the Way", "Indian Kingdom" - about a possible, but never held meeting at Christmas.

Their achievements in the genre of the Christmas story were supported and developed by Kuprin, Bunin, Andreev, Remizov, Sologub and many other writers who turned to him to once again, but from their own point of view, in their own way, to remind the general reader about the holidays highlighting the meaning of human existence.

And yet, the mass Christmas production of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, supplied to the reader at Christmas by periodicals, turns out to be limited by worn-out techniques - stamps and templates. Therefore, it is not surprising that already at the end of the 19th century, parodies began to appear both on the genre of the Christmas story and on its literary life - writers writing Christmas stories and readers reading them.

The upheavals of the beginning of the 20th century - the Russo-Japanese War, the turmoil of 1905-1907, and later - the First World War, unexpectedly gave a new breath to the Christmas story.

One of the consequences of the social upheavals of those years was an even more intensive growth of the press than it was in the 1870s and 1880s. This time he had not so much educational as political reasons: parties are being created that need their publications. "Christmas issues", as well as "Easter", play a significant role in them. The main ideas of the holiday - love for one's neighbor, compassion, mercy (depending on the political attitude of the authors and editors) - are combined with a variety of party slogans: either with calls for political freedom and the transformation of society, or with the requirements of restoring "order" and pacifying "distemper". ".

Yuletide issues of newspapers and magazines from 1905 to 1908 give a fairly complete picture of the alignment of forces in the political arena and reflect the nature of the change in public opinion. So, over time, Christmas stories become gloomier, and by Christmas 1907, the old optimism disappears from the pages of the Christmas Issues.

The processes that took place within literature itself also contributed to the renewal and raising of the prestige of the Christmas story during this period. Modernism (in all its ramifications) was accompanied by the growing interest of the intelligentsia in Orthodoxy and in the sphere of the spiritual in general. Numerous articles devoted to various religions of the world, and literary works based on a wide variety of religious and mythological traditions appear in magazines.

In this atmosphere of inclination towards the spiritual, which engulfed the intellectual and artistic elite of St. Petersburg and Moscow, Christmas and Christmas stories turned out to be an extremely convenient genre for artistic processing. Under the pen of modernists, the Christmas story is modified, sometimes significantly moving away from its traditional forms.

Sometimes, as, for example, in the story of V.Ya. Bryusov "The Child and the Madman", it provides an opportunity to depict mentally extreme situations. Here, the search for the baby Jesus is conducted by "marginal" heroes - a child and a mentally ill person - who perceive the miracle of Bethlehem not as an abstract idea, but as an unconditional reality.

In other cases, Christmas works are based on medieval (often apocryphal) texts in which religious moods and feelings are reproduced, which is especially characteristic of A.M. Remizov.

Sometimes, due to the reconstruction of the historical situation, a special flavor is given to the Christmas story, as, for example, in the story of S.A. Auslander "Christmas in old Petersburg".

The First World War gave Christmas literature a new and very characteristic turn. Patriotically minded at the beginning of the war, writers transfer the action of traditional plots to the front, linking military-patriotic and Christmas themes into one knot.

Thus, during the three years of wartime Christmas numbers, many stories appeared about Christmas in the trenches, about the "wonderful intercessors" of Russian soldiers, about the experiences of a soldier striving to go home for Christmas. A mocking play on the "tree in the trenches" in the story of A.S. Bukhov fully corresponds to the state of affairs in the Christmas literature of this period. Sometimes special editions of newspapers and "thin" magazines are published for Christmas, such as the humorous "Christmas in Positions", published for Christmas 1915.

The Christmas tradition finds a peculiar application in the era of the events of 1917 and the Civil War. In newspapers and magazines that had not yet been closed after October, quite a few works appeared sharply directed against the Bolsheviks, which was reflected, for example, in the first issue of the Satyricon magazine for 1918.

In the future, in the territories occupied by the troops of the White movement, works using Christmastide motifs in the fight against the Bolsheviks are found quite regularly. In the publications published in the cities controlled by the Soviet government, where attempts to at least to some extent preserve an independent press stop at the end of 1918, the Yuletide tradition almost dies out, occasionally reminding of itself in the New Year issues of humorous weeklies. At the same time, the texts published in them play on individual, most superficial motifs of Christmas literature, leaving aside the Christmas theme.

In the literature of the Russian diaspora, the fate of Christmas literature turned out to be different. The flow of people, unprecedented in the history of Russia, beyond its borders - to the Baltic states, to Germany, to France and more distant places - carried away both journalists and writers. Thanks to their efforts, since the early 1920s. in many centers of emigration, magazines and newspapers are created, which, in the new conditions, continue the traditions of the old journal practice.

Opening the issues of such publications as "Smoke" and "Rul" (Berlin), "Latest News" (Paris), "Dawn" (Harbin) and others, you can find numerous works and major writers (Bunin, Kuprin, Remizov, Merezhkovsky) , and young writers who appeared mainly abroad, such as, for example, V.V. Nabokov, who created several Christmas stories in his youth.

Christmas stories of the first wave of Russian emigration are an attempt to pour into the "small" traditional form the experiences of Russian people who tried in a foreign language environment and in difficult economic conditions of the 1920s-1930s. preserve their cultural traditions. The situation in which these people found themselves, in itself, contributed to the writers' appeal to the Christmastide genre. Emigrant writers may well not have invented sentimental stories, since they encountered them in their daily lives. In addition, the very orientation of the first wave of emigration towards tradition (preservation of language, faith, rituals, literature) corresponded to the orientation of Christmas and Christmastide texts towards an idealized past, towards memories, towards the cult of the hearth. In emigrant Christmas texts, this tradition was also supported by an interest in ethnography, Russian life, and Russian history.

But in the end, the Yuletide tradition in émigré literature, as in Soviet Russia, fell victim to political events. With the victory of Nazism, Russian publishing activity in Germany was gradually liquidated. The Second World War brought with it similar consequences in other countries. As early as 1939, the largest emigration newspaper, Latest News, stopped publishing Christmas stories. Apparently, the editors abandoned the traditional "Christmas issue" because they felt the inevitability of an impending catastrophe, even more terrible than the trials caused by previous global conflicts. After some time, the newspaper itself, as well as the more right-wing Vozrozhdenie, which printed calendar works even in 1940, were closed.

In Soviet Russia, the tradition of the calendar story did not completely die out, although, of course, there was no such number of Christmas and Christmas works that arose at the turn of the century. This tradition was supported to a certain extent by New Year's writings (prose and poetry) published in newspapers and fine magazines, especially for children (the Pionerskaya Pravda newspaper, Pioneer, Vozhatiy, Murzilka and others magazines). Of course, in these materials, the Christmas theme was absent or was presented in a severely deformed form. At first glance, it may seem strange, but it is precisely with the Christmas tradition that the “Christmas Tree in Sokolniki”, so memorable to many generations of Soviet children, “spun off” from the essay by V.D. Bonch-Bruevich “Three assassination attempts on V.I. Lenin", first published in 1930.

Here, Lenin, who came to the village school in 1919 for a Christmas tree, with his kindness and affection clearly resembles the traditional Santa Claus, who always brought so much joy and fun to children.

One of the best Soviet idylls, A. Gaidar's story "Chuk and Gek", also seems to be connected with the tradition of the Christmas story. Written in the tragic era of the late thirties, it, with unexpected sentimentality and kindness, so characteristic of the traditional Christmas story, recalls the highest human values ​​​​- children, family happiness, the comfort of the hearth, echoing in this Dickens's Christmas story "Cricket on the Stove".

Yuletide motifs and, in particular, the motif of Christmas dressing, inherited from folk Christmas time by Soviet mass culture, and above all by children's educational institutions, merged more organically with the Soviet New Year's holiday. It is this tradition that is guided, for example, by the films “Carnival Night” and “The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath” by E.A. Ryazanov, a director who is certainly endowed with sharp genre thinking and who always perfectly feels the viewer's needs for festive experiences.

Another soil on which calendar literature grew was the Soviet calendar, which was regularly enriched with new Soviet holidays, starting from the anniversaries of the so-called revolutionary events and ending with those that especially proliferated in the 1970s and 1980s. professional holidays. It is enough to turn to the periodicals of that time, to newspapers and thin magazines - Ogonyok, Rabotnitsa - to see how widespread texts related to the Soviet state calendar were.

The texts subtitled "Christmas" and "Christmas" stories practically fell into disuse in Soviet times. But they were not forgotten. In the press, these terms were encountered from time to time: the authors of various articles, memoirs and works of art often used them to characterize sentimental or far from reality events and texts.

This term is especially common in ironic headlines like “Ecology is not Christmas stories”, “Not a Christmas story at all”, etc. The memory of the genre was also kept by the intellectuals of the old generation, who were brought up on it, reading the issues of Sincere Word in childhood, sorting through the files of Niva and other pre-revolutionary magazines.

And now the time has come when calendar literature - Christmas and Christmas stories - again began to return to the pages of modern newspapers and magazines. This process has become especially noticeable since the late 1980s.

How can this phenomenon be explained? We note several factors. In all areas of modern life, there is a desire to restore the broken connection of times: to return to those customs and forms of life that were forcibly interrupted as a result of the October Revolution. Perhaps the key point in this process is an attempt to resurrect the sense of “calendar” in modern man. A person by nature has a need to live in the rhythm of time, within the framework of a conscious annual cycle. The fight against "religious prejudices" in the 1920s and the new "production calendar" (five days), introduced in 1929 at the 16th party conference, canceled the Christmas holiday, which was in full accordance with the idea of ​​destroying the old world "to the ground" and building a new one. The consequence of this was the destruction of tradition - a naturally established mechanism for transferring the foundations of a way of life from generation to generation. Today, much of what was lost is returning, including the old calendar rituals, and with it the "Christmas" literature.

LITERATURE

Research

Dushechkina E.V. Russian Christmas story: the formation of the genre. - St. Petersburg: Publishing House of St. Petersburg State University, 1995.

Dushechkina E.V. Russian tree: history, mythology, literature. - St. Petersburg: Norint, 2002.

Baran Henrik. Pre-revolutionary holiday literature and Russian modernism / Authorized translation from English by E.R. Squires // Poetics of Russian literature of the early twentieth century. - M., 1993.

Texts

Yuletide stories: Stories and poems by Russian writers [about Christmas and Christmas time]. Compilation and notes by S.F. Dmitrenko. - M.: Russian book, 1992.

Petersburg Christmas Story. Compilation, introductory article, notes by E.V. Dushechkina. - L .: Petropol, 1991.

The Miracle of Christmas Night: Yuletide Tales. Compilation, introductory article, notes by E.V. Dushechkina and H. Baran. - St. Petersburg: Fiction, 1993.

Star of Bethlehem: Christmas and Easter in verse and prose. Compilation and introduction by M. Written. - M.: Children's literature, 1993.

Holiday stories. Preface, compilation, notes and dictionary by M. Kucherskaya. - M.: Children's literature, 1996.

Yolka: A book for young children. - M.: Horizon; Minsk: Aurika, 1994. (Reprint of the book in 1917).

Yuletide and Christmas stories in Russian literature of the 18th-21st centuries.

Wonderful winter holidays have long included, and probably still include, old folk Christmas time (pagan in origin), the church holiday of the Nativity of Christ, and the worldly holiday of the New Year.

Literature has always been a reflection of the life of the people and society, and the mysterious Christmas theme is just a storehouse of fantastic stories that convey the world of the wonderful and the other world, always fascinating and attracting the average reader.

Christmas time, according to the capacious expression of A. Shakhovsky, is “evenings of folk fun”: fun, laughter, mischief are explained by a person’s desire to influence the future (in accordance with the proverb “as you started, so you finished” or with the modern one - “as you celebrate the New Year, that's how you'll get through it."

It was believed that the more fun a person spends the beginning of the year, the more prosperous the year will be ...

Artist A.Emelyanov "Svyatki"

However, where there is excessive laughter, fun, ferocity, it is always restless and even somehow disturbing ... This is where an intriguing plot begins to develop: detective, fantastic or simply romantic ... The plot is always timed to coincide with Holy days - the time from Christmas to Epiphany .

In Russian literature, the Christmas theme begins to develop from the middle of the 18th century: at first it was anonymous comedies about merrymaking, Christmas tales and stories. Their characteristic feature was the old idea that it is during the Christmas season that “evil spirits” acquire the greatest activity - devils, goblin, kikimors, banniks, etc. This emphasizes the hostility and danger of Christmas time ...

Divination, and caroling of mummers, and subservient songs were widely spread among the people. Meanwhile, the Orthodox Church has long condemned such behavior as sinful. In the decree of Patriarch Joachim of 1684, which forbids Christmas "monsters", it is said that they lead a person into "soul-destructive sin." Christmas games, fortune-telling and masquerading (“Mask-people”, putting on “beast-like mugs”) have always been condemned by the Church.

Subsequently, there was a need for folk Christmas bylichki and stories to be literary processed. These began to be dealt with by writers, poets, ethnographers and folklorists, in particular M.D. Chulkov, who published during 1769 the humorous magazine “I That, and Sio”, and F.D. Nefedov, from the end of the 19th century. who published magazines with a Christmas theme, and, of course, V.A. Zhukovsky, who created the most popular Russian ballad “Svetlana”, which is based on a folk story about a heroine guessing at Christmas time…

Many poets of the 19th century also addressed the Christmas theme: A. Pushkin (“Fortune-telling and Tatyana’s Dream” (an excerpt from the novel “Eugene Onegin”), A. Pleshcheev (“The Legend of the Christ Child”), Y. Polonsky (“Christmas Tree” ), A. Fet (“Divination”) and others.

Gradually, during the development of romanticism, the Christmas story attracts the whole world of the miraculous. Many stories are based on the miracle of Bethlehem, and this is the transformation of a simple Christmas story into a Christmas story…

The Christmas story in Russian literature, unlike Western literature, appeared only by the 1940s. 19th century this is explained by the different from Europe, the special role of the holiday.

The day of the Nativity of Christ is a great Christian holiday, the second most important after Easter.

For a long time in Russia Christmas time was celebrated all over the world, and only the Church celebrated the Nativity of Christ.

In the West, the Christian tradition was much earlier and more closely intertwined with the pagan one, in particular, this happened with the custom of decorating and lighting a Christmas tree for Christmas. The ancient pagan rite of honoring the tree has become a Christian custom. The Christmas tree has become a symbol of the Divine Child. The Christmas tree entered Russia late and took root slowly, like any Western innovation.

From the middle of the XIX century. the appearance of the first stories with a Christmas theme is also associated. Earlier texts, such as, for example, "The Night Before Christmas" by N.V. Gogol, are not indicative, firstly, Gogol's story depicts Christmas time in Ukraine, where the celebration and experience of Christmas was closer to the western one, and secondly, in Gogol, the pagan element ("devilry") prevails over the Christian.

Another thing is “Night of the Nativity of Christ” by the Moscow writer and actor K. Baranov, published in 1834. This is really a Christmas story: the motive of mercy and sympathy for the child, a typical motive of the Christmas story, turns out to be the leading one in it.

The mass appearance of such texts is observed after the Christmas stories of Charles Dickens of the early 1840s were translated into Russian. - "Christmas Carol in Prose", "Bells", "Cricket on the Stove", and later others.

These stories were a huge success with the Russian reader and gave rise to many imitations and variations. One of the first writers who turned to the Dickenian tradition was D.V. Grigorovich, who published the story “Winter Evening” in 1853.

Hoffmann's "Lord of the Fleas" and "The Nutcracker" and some of Andersen's fairy tales, especially "Yolka" and "The Match Girl" played an important role in the appearance of Russian Christmas prose.

The plot of the last tale was used by F.M. Dostoevsky in the story “The Boy at Christ on the Christmas Tree”, and later by V. Nemirovich-Danchenko in the story “Stupid Fedka”.

The death of a child on Christmas night is an element of phantasmagoria and a very terrible event, emphasizing the crime of all mankind against children...

But from a Christian point of view, little heroes acquire true happiness not on earth, but in Heaven: they become angels and end up on the Christmas tree of Christ Himself. In fact, a miracle is happening: the miracle of Bethlehem repeatedly affects the fate of people ...

Later, Christmas and Christmas stories were written by almost all major prose writers of the late XIX - n. XX centuries Christmas and Christmas stories could be funny and sad, funny and scary, they could end in a wedding or death of heroes, reconciliation or quarrel.

But with all the diversity of their plots, they all had something in common - something that was in harmony with the festive mood of the reader, sometimes sentimental, sometimes unrestrainedly cheerful, invariably evoking a response in the hearts.

At the heart of each such story was “a small event that has a completely Christmas character” (N.S. Leskov), which made it possible to give them a common subtitle. The terms "Christmas story" and "Christmas story", for the most part, were used as synonyms: in the texts under the heading "Christmas story" motifs related to the Christmas holiday could prevail, and the subtitle "Christmas story" did not imply the absence of folk motifs in the text. Christmas time…

The best examples of the genre were created by N.S. Leskov. In 1886, the writer wrote a whole series of Christmas stories.

In the story “Pearl Necklace”, he reflects on the genre: “It is absolutely required from the Christmas story that it be timed to coincide with the events of the Christmas evening - from Christmas to Epiphany, so that it is somehow fantastic, has some kind of morality ... and, finally - so that it ends happily.

In life, there are few such events, and therefore the author is not free to invent himself and compose a plot suitable for the program.

A kind of Christmas stories are "Vanka" and "At Christmas time" by A.P. Chekhov.

In n. In the 20th century, with the development of modernism in literature, parodies of the Christmastide genre and playful recommendations on how to compose Christmastide stories began to appear.

So, for example, in the newspaper "Rech" in 1909, O.L.D'or (Orsher I.) places the following guide for young writers:

“Any man who has hands, two kopecks for paper, pen and ink, and has no talent, can write a Christmas story.

You just need to adhere to the well-known system and firmly remember the following rules:

1) Without a pig, a goose, a Christmas tree and a good man, the Christmas story is not valid.

2) The words "nursery", "star" and "love" must be repeated at least ten, but not more than two or three thousand times.

3) Bell ringing, tenderness and repentance should be at the end of the story, and not at the beginning of it.

All the rest does not matter".

Parodies testified that the Yuletide genre had exhausted its possibilities. Of course, one cannot fail to note the interest in the sphere of the spiritual among the intelligentsia of that time.

But the Christmas story is moving away from its traditional norms. Sometimes, as, for example, in V. Bryusov's story "The Child and the Madman", it provides an opportunity to depict mentally extreme situations: the miracle of Bethlehem is perceived as an absolute reality in the story only by the child and the mentally ill Semyon.

In other cases, Christmas works are based on medieval and apocryphal texts, in which religious moods and feelings are especially intensively reproduced (the contribution of A.M. Remizov is important here).

Sometimes, due to the reproduction of the historical situation, the Christmas story is given a special flavor (as, for example, in S. Auslender's story "Christmas in Old Petersburg"), sometimes the story gravitates towards an action-packed psychological novel.

A. Kuprin especially honored the traditions of the Christmas story, creating excellent examples of the genre - stories about faith, kindness and mercy “The Poor Prince” and “The Wonderful Doctor”, as well as writers from Russian abroad I. A. Bunin (“Epiphany Night”, etc.) , I.S. Shmelev (“Christmas”, etc.) and V. Nikiforov-Volgin (“Silver Blizzard”, etc.).

In many Christmas stories, the theme of childhood is the main one. This topic is developed by the statesman and Christian thinker K. Pobedonostsev in his essay "Christmas":

Unless you are like children, do not enter into the kingdom of God. Other holidays are not so accessible to children's understanding ... "

“A quiet night over the Palestinian fields, a secluded nativity scene, a manger. Surrounded by those domestic animals that are familiar to the child from the first impressions of memory - in a manger a twisted Baby and above Him a meek, loving Mother with a thoughtful look and a clear smile of maternal happiness - three magnificent kings, following a star to a wretched den with gifts - and away in the field, shepherds in the midst of their flock, listening to the joyful news of the Angel and the mysterious choir of the Powers of Heaven.

Then the villain Herod, pursuing the innocent Child; the massacre of babies in Bethlehem, then the journey of the holy family to Egypt - how much life and action in all this, how much interest for the child!

And not only for a child ... Holy days are such an amazing time when everyone becomes a child: simple, sincere, open, kind and loving to everyone.

Later, and not surprisingly, the Christmas story "revolutionarily" turned into a New Year's story. The New Year as a holiday supplants Christmas, the good Santa Claus comes to replace the Christ Child ...

But the state of awe and the expectation of a miracle is also present in the "new" stories. “Yolka in Sokolniki”, “Three assassination attempts on V.I. The orientation of E. Ryazanov's films “Carnival Night” and “The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath” to this tradition is also undoubted ...

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Christmas stories by Russian writers

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Series "Christmas Gift"

Approved for distribution by the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church IS 13-315-2235

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881)

The boy at Christ on the Christmas tree

Boy with a pen

Children are a strange people, they dream and imagine. In front of the Christmas tree, and right before Christmas, on the street, on a certain corner, I always met one boy, no more than seven years old. In the terrible frost, he was dressed almost like a summer dress, but his neck was tied with some kind of junk, which means that someone still equipped him, sending him. He walked "with a pen"; it is a technical term, it means to beg. The term was invented by these boys themselves. There are many like him, they spin on your road and howl something learned by heart; but this one did not howl, and spoke somehow innocently and unaccustomedly, and looked trustingly into my eyes—so, he was just beginning his profession. In response to my questions, he said that he had a sister, she was unemployed, sick; maybe it’s true, but only later I found out that these boys are in darkness and darkness: they are sent out “with a pen” even in the most terrible frost, and if they don’t get anything, then they will probably be beaten. Having collected kopecks, the boy returns with red, stiff hands to some basement, where some gang of negligent people is drinking, one of those who, “having gone on strike at the factory on Sunday on Saturday, return to work again no earlier than on Wednesday evening” . There, in the cellars, their hungry and beaten wives drink with them, their hungry babies squeak right there. Vodka, and dirt, and debauchery, and most importantly, vodka. With the collected kopecks, the boy is immediately sent to the tavern, and he brings more wine. For fun, they sometimes pour a pigtail into his mouth and laugh when he, with a short breath, falls almost unconscious on the floor,

... and bad vodka in my mouth
Ruthlessly poured...

When he grows up, they quickly sell him somewhere to the factory, but everything that he earns, he is again obliged to bring to the caretakers, and they again drink it away. But even before the factory, these children become perfect criminals. They wander around the city and know such places in different basements that you can crawl into and where you can spend the night unnoticed. One of them spent several nights in a row with a janitor in a basket, and he never noticed him. Of course, they become thieves. Theft turns into a passion even in eight-year-old children, sometimes even without any consciousness of the criminality of the action. In the end, they endure everything - hunger, cold, beatings - for only one thing, for freedom, and they run away from their negligent wanderers already from themselves. This wild creature sometimes does not understand anything, neither where he lives, nor what nation he is, whether there is a God, whether there is a sovereign; even such convey things about them that are unbelievable to hear, and yet they are all facts.

The boy at Christ on the Christmas tree

But I am a novelist, and it seems that I composed one "story" myself. Why do I write: “it seems”, because I myself know for sure what I composed, but I keep imagining that it happened somewhere and sometime, it happened just on the eve of Christmas, in some huge city and in a terrible freezing.

It seems to me that there was a boy in the basement, but still very small, about six years old or even less. This boy woke up in the morning in a damp and cold basement. He was dressed in some kind of robe and was trembling. His breath came out in white steam, and he, sitting in the corner on the chest, out of boredom, purposely let this steam out of his mouth and amused himself, watching how it flies out. But he really wanted to eat. Several times in the morning he approached the bunks, where on a bedding as thin as a pancake and on some bundle under his head, instead of a pillow, lay his sick mother. How did she get here? She must have come with her boy from a foreign city and suddenly fell ill. The mistress of the corners was captured by the police two days ago; the tenants dispersed, it was a festive matter, and the remaining one dressing gown had been lying dead drunk for a whole day, not even waiting for the holiday. In another corner of the room, some eighty-year-old old woman was moaning from rheumatism, who had once lived somewhere in nannies, and now she was dying alone, groaning, grumbling and grumbling at the boy, so that he already began to be afraid to come close to her corner. He got a drink somewhere in the entryway, but he didn’t find a crust anywhere, and once in the tenth he already came up to wake his mother. He felt terrible, at last, in the darkness: evening had already begun long ago, but no fire was lit. Feeling his mother's face, he was surprised that she did not move at all and became as cold as a wall. “It’s very cold here,” he thought, stood a little, unconsciously forgetting his hand on the dead woman’s shoulder, then breathed on his fingers to warm them, and suddenly, groping for his cap on the bunk, slowly, gropingly, went out of the cellar. He would have gone earlier, but he was always afraid upstairs, on the stairs, of a big dog that had been howling all day at the neighbor's door. But the dog was gone, and he suddenly went out into the street.

God, what a city! Never before had he seen anything like it. There, from where he came, at night such black darkness, one lamp on the whole street. Wooden low houses are locked with shutters; on the street, it gets a little dark - nobody, everyone shuts up at home, and only whole packs of dogs howl, hundreds and thousands of them, howl and bark all night. But it was so warm there and they gave him food, but here - Lord, if only he could eat! and what a knock and thunder here, what light and people, horses and carriages, and frost, frost! Frozen steam pours from driven horses, from their hotly breathing snouts; horseshoes clinking against the stones through the loose snow, and everyone is pushing like that, and, Lord, I so want to eat, at least a piece of some kind, and my fingers suddenly hurt so much. A law enforcement officer passed by and turned away so as not to notice the boy.

Here again the street - oh, what a wide! Here they will probably crush them like that; how they all shout, run and ride, but the light, the light! and what's that? Wow, what a big glass, and behind the glass is a room, and in the room there is a tree up to the ceiling; this is a Christmas tree, and there are so many lights on the Christmas tree, how many golden bills and apples, and all around are dolls, little horses; and children running around the room, smart, clean, laughing and playing, and eating, and drinking something. This girl started dancing with the boy, what a pretty girl! Here is the music, you can hear it through the glass. The boy looks, marvels, and already laughs, and his fingers and legs already hurt, and on his hands they have become completely red, they can no longer bend and move painfully. And suddenly the boy remembered that his fingers hurt so much, began to cry and ran on, and now again he sees through another glass a room, again there are trees, but on the tables there are pies, all sorts - almond, red, yellow, and four people are sitting there. rich ladies, and whoever comes, they give him pies, and the door opens every minute, many gentlemen enter them from the street. A boy crept up, suddenly opened the door and went in. Wow, how they shouted and waved at him! One lady came up quickly and thrust a kopeck into his hand, and she herself opened the door to the street for him. How scared he was! and the kopeck immediately rolled out and clinked up the steps: he could not bend his red fingers and hold it. The boy ran out and went quickly, quickly, but where he did not know. He wants to cry again, but he's afraid, and he runs, runs and blows on his hands. And longing takes him, because he suddenly felt so lonely and terrifying, and suddenly, Lord! So what is it again? People are standing in a crowd and marveling: on the window behind the glass are three dolls, small, dressed in red and green dresses and very, very much like they are alive! Some old man sits and seems to be playing a big violin, two others stand right there and play small violins, and shake their heads in time, and look at each other, and their lips move, they talk, they really talk, - only because of the glass is not audible. And at first the boy thought that they were alive, but when he completely guessed that they were pupae, he suddenly laughed. He had never seen such dolls and did not know that there were such! and he wants to cry, but it's so funny, funny on pupae. Suddenly it seemed to him that someone grabbed him by the dressing gown from behind: a big angry boy stood nearby and suddenly cracked him on the head, tore off his cap, and gave him a leg from below. The boy rolled to the ground, then they screamed, he was stupefied, he jumped up and ran and ran, and suddenly ran he didn’t know where, into the doorway, into someone else’s yard, and sat down for firewood: “They won’t find it here, and it’s dark.”

He sat down and writhed, but he himself could not catch his breath from fear, and suddenly, quite suddenly, he felt so good: his arms and legs suddenly stopped hurting and it became as warm, as warm as on the stove; now he shuddered all over: oh, why, he was about to fall asleep! How good it is to fall asleep here: “I’ll sit here and go again to look at the dolls,” the boy thought and grinned, remembering them, “just like they are alive! ..” and suddenly he heard that his mother was singing a song over him. "Mom, I'm sleeping, oh, how good it is to sleep here!"

“Come to my Christmas tree, boy,” a quiet voice suddenly whispered above him.

He thought it was all his mother, but no, not her; Who called him, he does not see, but someone bent over him and hugged him in the darkness, and he held out his hand to him and ... And suddenly, - oh, what a light! Oh what a tree! And this is not a Christmas tree, he has not yet seen such trees! Where is he now: everything glitters, everything shines and all around are dolls - but no, they are all boys and girls, only so bright, they all circle around him, fly, they all kiss him, take him, carry him with them, yes and he himself flies, and he sees: his mother looks and laughs at him joyfully.

- Mother! Mother! Oh, how good it is here, mom! - the boy shouts to her, and again kisses the children, and he wants to tell them as soon as possible about those dolls behind the glass. - Who are you boys? Who are you girls? he asks, laughing and loving them.

“This is the Christ Tree,” they answer him. “Christ always has a Christmas tree on this day for little children who don’t have their own Christmas tree there ...” And he found out that these boys and girls were all the same as he, children, but some were still frozen in their baskets, in which they were thrown on the stairs to the doors of the St. Petersburg officials, others suffocated at the little huts, from the orphanage to be fed, the third died at the withered breasts of their mothers during the Samara famine, the fourth suffocated in third-class carriages from the stench, and yet they are now here, they are all now like angels, all with Christ, and He Himself is in the midst of them, and stretches out His hands to them, and blesses them and their sinful mothers... And the mothers of these children all stand right there, on the sidelines, and weep; each recognizes her boy or girl, and they fly up to them and kiss them, wipe their tears with their hands and beg them not to cry, because they feel so good here ...

And below, in the morning, the janitors found a small corpse of a boy who had run in and froze behind firewood; they also found his mother ... She died even before him; both met with the Lord God in heaven.

And why did I write such a story, so not going into an ordinary reasonable diary, and even a writer? and also promised stories mainly about real events! But that's just the point, it always seems and imagines to me that all this could really happen - that is, what happened in the basement and behind the firewood, and there about Christ's Christmas tree - I don’t know how to tell you could it happen or not? That's why I'm a novelist, to invent.

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904)

The tall, evergreen tree of fate is hung with the blessings of life... From bottom to top hang careers, happy occasions, suitable parties, wins, butter figs, clicks on the nose, and so on. Adult children crowd around the Christmas tree. Fate gives them gifts ...

- Children, which of you wants a rich merchant's wife? she asks, taking down a red-cheeked merchant's wife from head to toe, studded with pearls and diamonds from head to toe ... - Two houses on Plyushchikha, three iron shops, one porter shop and two hundred thousand in money! Who wants?

- To me! To me! hundreds of hands reach out for the merchant. - I need a merchant!

- Do not crowd, children, and do not worry ... Everyone will be satisfied ... Let the young doctor take the merchant's wife. A person who has devoted himself to science and enrolled in the benefactors of mankind cannot do without a pair of horses, good furniture, and so on. Take it, dear doctor! not at all ... Well, now the next surprise! A place on the Chukhlomo-Poshekhonskaya railway! Ten thousand salaries, the same amount of bonuses, work three hours a month, an apartment with thirteen rooms, and so on ... Who wants it? Are you Kolya? Take it, honey! More… Housekeeper's job at the lone Baron Schmaus! Ah, don't tear like that, mesdames! Have patience!.. Next! A young, pretty girl, the daughter of poor but noble parents! Not a penny of dowry, but an honest, sensitive, poetic nature! Who wants? (Pause.) Nobody?

- I would take it, but there is nothing to feed! - the voice of the poet is heard from the corner.

So no one wants to?

- Perhaps, let me take ... So be it ... - says a small, gouty old man who serves in a spiritual consistory. - Perhaps ...

- Zorina's handkerchief! Who wants?

- Ah! .. Me! Me!.. Ah! The leg was crushed! To me!

- Next surprise! A luxurious library containing all the works of Kant, Schopenhauer, Goethe, all Russian and foreign authors, a lot of old folios and so on ... Who wants to?

- I'm with! - says second-hand book dealer Svinopasov. - Please, sir!

Svinoherds takes the library, selects the Oracle, the Dream Book, the Letter Book, the Desk Book for Bachelors... he throws the rest on the floor...

- Next! Okreyts portrait!

Loud laughter is heard...

“Let me…” says Winkler, the owner of the museum. - Useful...

The boots go to the artist… in the end, the Christmas tree is taken away and the audience disperses… Only one employee of humorous magazines remains near the Christmas tree…

- What about me? he asks fate. - Everyone received a gift, but at least I had something. This is wickedness on your part!

- Everything was taken apart, nothing was left ... However, there was only one cookie with oil ... Do you want it?

- No need ... I'm already tired of these cookies with butter ... The cash desks of some Moscow editorial offices are full of this stuff. Is there anything more important?

Take these frames...

I already have them...

“Here’s the bridle, the reins… Here’s the red cross, if you like… Toothache… Hedgehogs… A month in jail for defamation…”

I already have all this...

“A tin soldier, if you like… A map of the North…”

The humorist waves his hand and goes home with the hope of next year's Christmas tree ...

1884

Christmas story

There are weathers when winter, as if angry at human infirmity, calls the harsh autumn to its aid and works together with it. Snow and rain swirl in the hopeless, misty air. The wind, damp, cold, piercing, with furious malice knocks on the windows and roofs. He howls in pipes and cries in vents. In the dark, like soot, the air hangs melancholy ... Nature is troubled ... Damp, cold and creepy ...

The weather was exactly like this on the night before Christmas in 1882, when I was not yet in the prison companies, but served as an appraiser in the loan office of the retired staff captain Tupaev.

It was twelve o'clock. The pantry, in which, by the will of the owner, I had my nightly residence and pretended to be a guard dog, was dimly lit by a blue lamp light. It was a large square room littered with bundles, chests, whatnots... on the gray wooden walls, from the cracks of which a disheveled tow looked, hare coats, undershirts, guns, paintings, a sconce, a guitar... I, who was obliged to guard this property at night, lay on a large red chest behind a display case with precious things and looked thoughtfully at the lamp flame ...

Somehow I felt fear. The things stored in the storerooms of the loan offices are terrible ... at night, in the dim light of the lamp, they seem alive ... Now, when the rain murmured outside the window, and the wind howled plaintively in the furnace and above the ceiling, it seemed to me that they made howling sounds. All of them, before getting here, had to pass through the hands of an appraiser, that is, through mine, and therefore I knew everything about each of them ... I knew, for example, that powders for consumptive cough were bought for the money received for this guitar ... I knew that a drunkard shot himself with this revolver; wife hid the revolver from the police, pawned it with us and bought a coffin.

The bracelet looking at me from the window was pawned by the person who stole it... Two lace shirts marked 178 were pawned by a girl who needed a ruble to enter the Salon, where she was going to earn money... In short, I read hopeless grief on every item, disease, crime, corrupt debauchery ...

On the night before Christmas, these things were somehow especially eloquent.

- Let us go home! .. - they cried, it seemed to me, along with the wind. - Let go!

But not only things aroused in me a feeling of fear. When I stuck my head out from behind the shop window and cast a timid glance at the dark, sweaty window, it seemed to me that human faces were looking into the pantry from the street.

“What nonsense! I encouraged myself. “What stupid tenderness!”

The fact is that a person endowed by nature with the nerves of an appraiser was tormented by conscience on the night before Christmas - an incredible and even fantastic event. Conscience in loan offices is available only under a mortgage. Here it is understood as an object of sale and purchase, while other functions are not recognized for it ... It's amazing, where could it come from? I tossed and turned from side to side on my hard chest and, screwing up my eyes from the flickering lamp, tried with all my might to drown out the new, unwelcome feeling in me. But my efforts were in vain...

Of course, physical and moral fatigue after hard, all-day work was partly to blame here. On Christmas Eve, the poor crowded into the loan office in droves. On a big holiday, and in addition, even in bad weather, poverty is not a vice, but a terrible misfortune! at this time, a drowning poor man is looking for a straw in the loan office and receives a stone instead ... for the whole Christmas Eve we had so many people that three-quarters of the mortgages, for lack of space in the pantry, we were forced to demolish in a shed. From early morning until late evening, without ceasing for a minute, I bargained with ragamuffins, squeezed pennies and kopecks out of them, looked at tears, listened to vain pleas ... by the end of the day I could hardly stand on my feet: my soul and body were exhausted. No wonder I was awake now, tossing and turning from side to side and feeling terribly…

Someone gently knocked on my door ... Following the knock, I heard the voice of the owner:

"Are you asleep, Pyotr Demyanitch?"

- Not yet, why?

“You know, I’m thinking about opening the door for us early tomorrow morning?” The holiday is big, and the weather is furious. The poor will swarm like a fly on honey. So you don’t go to mass tomorrow, but sit at the box office ... Good night!

“That’s why I’m so terrified,” I decided after the owner left, “that the lamp is flickering ... I must put it out ...”

I got out of bed and went to the corner where the lamp was hanging. The blue light, weakly flashing and flickering, apparently struggled with death. Each flicker illuminated for a moment the image, the walls, the knots, the dark window... and in the window two pale faces, crouching against the panes, looked into the pantry.

“There is no one there…” I reasoned. “That seems to me.”

And when, having put out the lamp, I groped my way to my bed, a small incident occurred that had a considerable influence on my future mood ... Suddenly, suddenly, a loud, furiously squealing crack was heard above my head, which lasted no more than a second. Something cracked and, as if feeling a terrible pain, squealed loudly.

Then a fifth burst on the guitar, but I, seized with panic fear, plugged my ears and, like a madman, stumbling over chests and bundles, ran to the bed ... I buried my head under the pillow and, barely breathing, fading with fear, began to listen.

- Let us go! the wind howled along with things. Let go for the holidays! After all, you yourself are poor, you know! He himself experienced hunger and cold! Let go!

Yes, I myself was poor and knew what hunger and cold meant. Poverty pushed me to this accursed appraiser's position, poverty made me despise grief and tears for the sake of a piece of bread. If it were not for poverty, would I have had the courage to value in pennies what is worth health, warmth, holiday joys? Why does the wind blame me, why does my conscience torment me?

But no matter how my heart beat, no matter how fear and remorse tormented me, fatigue took its toll. I fell asleep. It was a light sleep… I heard the owner knocking on my door again, how they struck for matins… I heard the wind howling and the rain pounding on the roof. My eyes were closed, but I saw things, a shop window, a dark window, an image. Things crowded around me and, blinking, asked me to let them go home. The strings on the guitar screeched one after another, bursting endlessly ... beggars, old women, prostitutes looked out the window, waiting for me to open the loan and return their things to them.

I heard through a dream how something scraped like a mouse. Scraping for a long time, monotonously. I tossed and cringed, because a strong cold and damp blew on me. Pulling the blanket over me, I heard a rustle and a human whisper.

"What a bad dream! I thought. - How terrible! Would wake up."

Something glass fell and broke. A light flickered behind the shop window, and light played on the ceiling.

- Don't knock! whispered. “Wake up that Herod… Take off your boots!”

Someone came up to the window, looked at me and touched the padlock. He was a bearded old man with a pale, emaciated physiognomy, in a torn soldier's frock coat and in props. He was approached by a tall thin guy with terribly long arms, in a loose shirt and a short, tattered jacket. Both of them whispered something and fussed around the shop window.

"They're robbing!" flashed through my head.

Although I was asleep, I remembered that there was always a revolver under my pillow. I quietly groped for it and squeezed it in my hand. Glass clinked in the window.

- Quiet, wake up. Then you'll have to poke.

Further, I dreamed that I cried out in a chesty, wild voice and, frightened by my own voice, jumped up. The old man and the young fellow, spreading their arms, pounced on me, but, seeing the revolver, stepped back. I remember that a minute later they stood before me pale and, tearfully blinking their eyes, begged me to let them go. The wind blew violently through the broken window and played with the flame of the candle that the thieves had lit.

- Your honor! someone spoke under the window in a weeping voice. - You are our benefactors! Merciful!

I looked at the window and saw an old woman's face, pale, emaciated, soaked in the rain.

- Don't touch them! Let go! she cried, looking at me with imploring eyes. - It's poverty!

- Poverty! the old man confirmed.

- Poverty! sang the wind.

My heart sank from pain, and in order to wake up, I pinched myself ... But instead of waking up, I stood at the window, took things out of it and convulsively shoved them into the pockets of the old man and the guy.

- Take it, quickly! I gasped. - Tomorrow is a holiday, and you are beggars! Take it!

Filling my beggarly pockets, I tied the rest of the jewels in a knot and tossed them to the old woman. I gave the old woman a fur coat, a bundle with a black pair, lace shirts and, incidentally, a guitar. There are such strange dreams! Then, I remember, the door creaked. It was as if they had grown out of the earth, and the owner, police officers, and police officers appeared before me. The owner is standing next to me, but I seem not to see and continue to knit knots.

"What are you doing, you scoundrel?"

“Tomorrow is a holiday,” I answer. - They need to eat.

Then the curtain falls, rises again, and I see new scenery. I'm no longer in the pantry, but somewhere else. A policeman walks around me, puts a mug of water for me at night and mutters: “Look! Look you! What did you think for the holiday! When I woke up, it was already light. The rain no longer knocked on the window, the wind did not howl. The festive sun was playing cheerfully on the wall. The first one who congratulated me on the holiday was the senior policeman.

A month later I was judged. For what? I assured the judges that it was a dream, that it was unfair to judge a man for a nightmare. Judge for yourself, could I give other people's things to thieves and scoundrels for no reason at all? And where is it seen to give things away without receiving a ransom? But the court took the dream for reality and condemned me. In prison companies, as you can see. Could you, your honor, put in a good word for me somewhere? Oh god, it's not your fault.

1. O'Henry "Gifts of the Magi"

This is a touching story about the value of a gift, no matter the price; this story is about the importance of self-sacrifice in the name of love.

A young married couple survives on eight dollars a week, and Christmas is just around the corner. Dell cries in despair because he cannot buy a present for his beloved husband. Over the course of many months, she was only able to save a dollar and eighty-eight cents. But then she remembers that she has simply gorgeous hair, and decides to sell it in order to give her husband a chain for his family watch.

The husband, who saw his wife in the evening, seems to be very upset. But he was not saddened because his wife looked like a ten-year-old boy, but because he sold his gold watch to give the most beautiful combs, which she looked at for several months.

Looks like Christmas failed. But these two cried not from sadness, but from love for each other.

2. Sven Nurdqvist "Christmas Porridge"

Gnomes get along well with people, help them run the household, take care of animals. And they don’t demand much from people - for Christmas, bring them a special Christmas porridge. But here's the bad luck, people completely forgot about the gnomes. And the dwarf dad will be terribly angry if he finds out that there will be no treats this year. How to enjoy porridge and not catch the eye of the owners of the house?

3. Sven Nordqvist "Christmas in Petson's house"

This is a wonderful work of friendship and support in difficult times. Petson and his kitten Findus live together and are already starting to prepare for Christmas. But bad luck happened - Petson accidentally injured his leg and will no longer be able to finish all the work. And in the house, as if to evil, food and firewood for the stove ran out, and they didn’t even have time to put up a Christmas tree. Who will help friends not to be hungry and lonely at Christmas?

4. Gianni Rodari "Planet of Christmas Trees"

Little Marcus was nine years old. He dreamed of receiving a real spaceship as a gift from his grandfather, but for some reason his grandfather gave him a toy horse. Why is he a kid to play with such toys? But curiosity took its toll, and in the evening Marcus got on a horse, which turned out to be ... a spaceship.

Marcus ended up on a distant planet, where Christmas trees grew everywhere, residents lived according to a special New Year calendar, sidewalks themselves moved, delicious bricks and wire were served in cafes, and for children they came up with a special palace "Break-break", where they were allowed to destroy everything.
Everything would be fine, but how to return home? ..

5. Hans Christian Andersen "Girl with matches"

Unfortunately, not all fairy tales end happily. And this is impossible to read without tears. Is it possible for a child to wander the streets on New Year's Eve hoping to sell at least one match? She warmed her little fingers, and the shadows from the tiny fire painted scenes of a happy life that she could see through other people's windows.

We do not even know the name of the baby - for us she will always be a girl with matches, who, due to the greed and indifference of adults, flew to heaven.

6. Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol"

This work has become a favorite for more than one generation. We know his adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

This is the story of the greedy Ebenezer Scrooge, for whom nothing is more important than money. Compassion, mercy, joy, love are alien to him. But everything should change on Christmas Eve...

In each of us lives a little Scrooge, and it is so important not to miss the moment, to open the doors for love and mercy, so that this miser does not completely take over us.

7. Katherine Holabert "Angelina Meets Christmas"

Little mouse Angelina is looking forward to Christmas. She had already planned what she would do at home, only now she noticed in the window a lonely sad Mr. Bell, who had no one to celebrate the holiday with. Sweet Angelina decides to help Mr. Bell, but she has no idea that thanks to her kind heart she will find the real Santa Claus!

8. Susan Wojciechowski "Mr. Toomey's Christmas Miracle"

Mr. Toomey makes a living doing woodcarving. Once he smiled and was happy. But after the loss of his wife and son, he became gloomy and received the nickname Mr. Gloomy from the neighborhood children. Once, on Christmas Eve, a widow with a young son knocked on his door and asked him to make them Christmas figurines, since they had lost theirs after the move. It would seem that there is nothing wrong with an ordinary order, but gradually this work is changing Mr. Toomey ...

9. Nikolai Gogol "The Night Before Christmas"

A favorite piece for adults and children alike. An amazing story about evenings on a farm near Dikanka, which formed the basis of films, musicals and cartoons. But if your child does not yet know the history of Vakula, Oksana, Solokha, Chub and other heroes, and also has not heard that the devil can steal the moon, and what other miracles happen on the night before Christmas, it is worth devoting a few evenings to this fascinating story .

10. Fyodor Dostoevsky "Christ's Boy on the Tree"

This is a difficult work, without pathos and decorations, the author truthfully draws a poor life. Parents will have to explain a lot, because, thank God, our children do not know such hardships as the main character.

The little boy is cold from the cold and is exhausted from hunger. His mother died in some dark basement, and he is looking for a piece of bread on Christmas Eve. The boy, probably for the first time in his life, sees another, happy life. Only she is there, outside the windows of wealthy people. The boy was able to get to the Christmas tree to Christ, but after he froze on the street ...

11. Marco Cheremshina "Tear"

This short story will not leave indifferent neither adults nor children. On one page fit the whole life of a poor family. Marusya's mother became seriously ill. In order to prevent her mother from dying, a little girl goes to the city for medicine. But the Christmas frost does not spare the child, and snow pours into the holey boots as if out of spite.

Marusya is exhausted and quietly dies in the snow. Her only hope is for the last childish tear that miraculously fell on the cheek of a Christmas angel ...

12. Mikhail Kotsyubinsky "Christmas tree"

Deep, dramatic, insightful work. It will not leave any reader indifferent, and the intrigue will not let you relax until the very end.
Once upon a time, little Vasylka was given a Christmas tree by his father; it grew in the garden and made the boy happy. And today, on Christmas Eve, my father sold the Christmas tree, because the family really, really needed money. When the Christmas tree was cut down, it seemed to Vasylka that she was about to cry, and the boy himself seemed to have lost a dear person.

But Vasylko also had to take the Christmas tree to the city. The road went through the forest, the Christmas frost was crackling, the snow covered all traces, and, unfortunately, the sleigh also broke down. It is not surprising that Vasylko got lost in the forest. Will the boy be able to find his way home and will Christmas be a joyful holiday for his family?

13. Lydia Podvysotskaya "The Tale of the Christmas Angel"

The Christmas angel looked into one of the rooms and saw a little boy who was thrashing in a fever and breathing hoarsely, and a little older girl was sitting bent over him. The angel realized that the children were orphans. It is very difficult and scary for them to live without a mother. But that's why he is a Christmas angel to help and protect good children ...

14. Maria Shkurina "Star as a gift for mom"

Little Anya's mother has been ill for a long time, and the doctor only looks away and shakes his head sadly. And tomorrow is Christmas. Last year they had so much fun walking with the whole family, and now mom can’t even get out of bed. A little girl remembers that wishes come true at Christmas, and asks a star from the sky for health for her mother. Only will a distant star hear a child's prayer?

Christmas is the period when magic comes into its own. Teach your children to believe in miracles, in the power of love and faith, and to do good themselves. And these wonderful stories will help you with this.